Construction of the replacement of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District canal and sedimentation basin continues at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

In the flat, undeveloped desert north of Mentone, ducks and geese float in a series of large ponds, enjoying water from Northern California.

Ponds like these are designed to capture water so that it can percolate through the soil and recharge the Bunker Hill Groundwater Basin, which serves about 600,000 resients in the East San Bernardino Valley and 300,000 residents in the city of Riverside.

Water flows along the low spot for the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

Construction of the replacement of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District canal and sedimentation basin continues at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

General Manager Daniel Cozad, with the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District, gives a tour of the Cuttle Weir and diversion structure at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

Construction of the replacement of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District canal and sedimentation basin continues at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

Construction of the replacement of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District canal and sedimentation basin continues at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

General Manager Daniel Cozad, with the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District, gives a tour of the Cuttle Weir and diversion structure at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

Construction of the replacement of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District canal and sedimentation basin continues at the Santa Ana River in Highland, CA., Wednesday, October 18, 2017. (Staff photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/The Sun/SCNG)

Those ponds — and nearly 70 more of them — belong to the Redlands-based San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District, which this week announced it recharged the East Valley’s water basin in the most recent water year with enough to serve some 92,000 households for a year, said Daniel B. Cozad, general manager.

It was the 16th largest recharge amount since the conservation district started recording measurements 105 years ago, he said.

Local runoff was below the historical average in the district’s 2017 water year, which ran from October 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017.

Nevertheless, it was much better than in the past four years, he said.

Last year’s streamflow total was 8,901 acre-feet above the previous four years of combined streamflow in the Santa Ana River and Mill Creek — enough to provide for the water needs of about 16,000 households, Cozad said.

The San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District is a special government entity created after a severe drought between 1893 and 1903 and has been focused on groundwater conservation.

It owns and manages about 4,500 acres in the Santa Ana Wash, located at the junction of the Santa Ana River and Mill Creek and is bound by the Santa Ana River on the south, Greenspot Road on the northern and eastern boundaries and near Alabama Street on the west.

Because Northern California received a dramatic amount of rain and snowfall last winter, more State Water Project water could be purchased in 2017, Cozad said.

To help recharge the basin, which is at record lows, the area’s water wholesaler, the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District based in San Bernardino, has been urging its member agencies to buy as much of the state water as possible for recharge purposes, according to Bob Tincher, the district’s water services manager.

The state water project water enters a man-made canal south of Greenspot Road and east of the Highland headquarters of the East Valley Water District, 31111 Greenspot Road.

On a recent visit, water was roaring out of its high-pressure pipeline.

A year ago, Cozad said there wasn’t even a trickle coming from the pipeline and into the channel, which flows into nearby basins.

A few customers elsewhere in the region, this time last year, were using State Water Project water, he said.

Within view of the Santa Ana Low, the name given to the point where State Water Project water enters the conservation district, is a giant crane working on an approximately $10 million project to build a large sedimentation pond that would take out silt and other debris from rainwater and snowmelt coming out of the San Bernardino Mountains, Tincher said.

This will be an important structure to support a new series of runoff-water capture basins to be built, starting in about 2020, he said.

It’s too early to see if the increase in recharge water has boosted the Bunker Hill Basin’s water table, but when final measurements come back at the end of the calendar year, the result will still be at a record low, Tincher said.

While buying State Water Project water for basin recharge is a good idea, the only way Bunker HiIl water levels will recover from the San Bernardino Valley’s 19 years of drought will be “local rain and lots of it for a number of years,” Tincher said.

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